Bentley On The Comeback Trail

When Bentley goes racing, you can rest assured that things are done properly. Given that Bentley’s last project – their first in 73 years – was the 2003 Le Mans-winning Speed 8, even before it hit the track, great things were thus expected of the new GT3 Continental, prepared by rallying supremos M-Sport. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, Bentley’s return to sportscar racing in the Gulf 12 Hours of Abu Dhabi was a marked success, as Steven Kane, Andy Meyrick and Guy Smith brought the car home in fourth place on its race debut.

“It was fantastic; almost a perfect weekend for us, with a new car, a new team, a new programme,” Smith said. “You go to those races and you can never underestimate the challenge of a 12 hour race, especially with a new car, but the GT3 ran pretty much faultlessly all weekend long. 

Finishing fourth on debut after 12 Hours was a perfect
start for the GT3 Continental. (Credit: Bentley Motors)

“The purpose was to go there and get experience and to finish the race, which we did, so to bring the car home in fourth place was excellent and definitely beyond what we thought was going to happen. There are certainly some things that we can improve on, but these are things we expect, that’s why we do these long tests. We’ve come away from there with a hit-list to improve on in future and luckily it was all relatively small things, which is very encouraging.”

Smith, a Bentley man through and through who was part of the 2003 winning line-up with ‘Mr Le Mans’ Tom Kristensen and the now-retired Dindo Capello, believes that making the finish first time out bodes well for the upcoming season in the Blancpain Endurance Series, which will see the V8-powered Bentley pitched up against the great and good of sportscar racing from Audi, Porsche, Ferrari, BMW, McLaren and more.

“These 12 hour and 24 hour races are as hard as they come, where Blancpain is a lot more of a sprint format, so we can be more aggressive,” he said. “We’ve been impressed so far with the performance of the car and I think there’s more to come in terms of fine-tuning. You never stop learning and developing.

“The most important thing with the GT3 being a customer programme is that as well as having a fast car and a reliable car, we want a customer-friendly car, that’s easy for the teams to run and for the gentleman drivers to get in and drive safely and quickly, which is something we put a lot of effort into during the testing. We’ve still got the BOP to come, which is a little bit of an unknown, but we’re confident that we have a car that can be competitive against any other car out there.”

M-Sport boss Malcolm Wilson is more familiar with the mud and dust of the World Rally Championship, but was impressed by what he saw in Abu Dhabi. Winner of 1994 British Rally Championship before switching to team-ownership with the Ford WRC programme from 1997, Wilson knows a fair bit about preparing cars and is excited for the challenge ahead.

Wilson's M-Sport team also runs Robert Kubica
in the World Rally Championship. (Credit: M-Sport)

“Abu Dhabi was my first race in effect; I must admit I’ve never been a racing man, but after being there, I’m really looking forward to the whole project now I have a better understanding of what’s required,” said Wilson.

“There’s no question we want to win. That’s what Bentley want and that’s what we’ve got to try and achieve,” he added. “We’ve seen that the car was competitive in Abu Dhabi, and now it’s just a question of getting the right drivers and making sure that all the attention to detail is there to win. No question, that’s the target, we want to be winning.”

One suspects those winning ways aren’t far off. 

[This article originally appeared in e-Racing Magazine as Arabian Knights. For more on endurance racing and Formula E, click here.]